Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 18th, 2024

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I'm getting water. I have no idea what she's going on about.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Angus, do you have a point of order?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Well, the issue is on the relevancy of whether or not we referred to what the PBO said. I agree it is under strict parameters, but it has nothing to do with nuclear or wind. I think we have to decide. It also does not mean we are not.... Unless we need clarification from Mr. Simard, I don't believe his motion means we're not going to finish our study and pass it on with all of the relevant information.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus. When Mr. Simard gets the floor, I'm sure he will provide a rationale for all of that. Thank you for pointing that out.

Ms. Dabrusin, before I go back to you, I'll go to Mrs. Stubbs on a point of order.

Go ahead.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Since Charlie got to give his input, I just thought I'd get in on that action.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Is this a point of order, or—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Since the parliamentary secretary referenced me, I'm going to say it.

I guess what I'm confused about is this: There's nothing whatsoever in Monsieur Simard's motion that precludes our committee from finishing this study and putting out a report. This entire thing is some sort of bizarre straw man argument. Is that right?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mrs. Stubbs, on your—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Maybe I used it in the wrong context, but I'm just reinforcing what MP Angus said, since Julie mentioned my name.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I'll ask folks to use points of order for procedural matters. I know Mr. Angus asked about relevancy, and I think Mrs. Stubbs was alluding to that. Mr. Simard will comment on that, if he feels that way.

Ms. Dabrusin, you have the floor. Colleagues have concerns about the relevancy of the argument you're making. Because I think you're going somewhere with that, I'll go back to you to continue on.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

The reason I was responding to those pieces, Mr. Chair, is that I feel like there's sleight of hand happening when the Conservatives say, “Well, you know, this Liberal government is anti-energy, and that's what this is all about.” That's what was just said, so I was responding to say that in fact our Liberal government has been supporting energy production here and energy exports from our country. I didn't want to leave that unanswered. I felt I had to respond to that as a piece of it.

I could go for quite a while about this, but I won't—at least, not at this moment. However, if I'm going to respond to the challenge that the Liberal government doesn't believe in the development of Canadian energy, with offshore wind, nuclear, critical minerals and what we're doing with hydrogen.... We're doing so much in so many different ways. We have agreements with international partners and we are supporting our allies, so I think it's very much a misrepresentation to say it in that way.

I will also clarify the point about the study versus a PBO report. I, along with everybody around this table, very much agreed that we should do this study on the TMX. It is an important study. I agreed with it and voted for it, but I feel that sending the PBO report to the House of Commons without the context of the full study leads us onto a path where we're going to have one debate that is on only one page of the whole report, essentially, in the way it works out.

My argument is that it wouldn't be the best way to go ahead. I think we should complete the report. We could do that. We actually have the time ahead of us right now to be able to do that. Finish the TMX report and then we can put it all in. The PBO report is part of it because a PBO officer came and spoke.

That's very much where I'm coming from in all of this.

Now, if I understand it correctly, the motion that was brought by Monsieur Simard—I'm reading it in English—is:

That, given the Parliamentary Budget Officer's statements in the Trans Mountain pipeline system report 2024 released on November 8, 2024, the committee expresses concern about the financial uncertainty regarding the government's ability to sell the Trans Mountain pipeline system at a price that avoids a net loss to taxpayers and asks the chair to report to the House as soon as possible.

What I would propose is an amendment to that motion to replace the words “expresses concern about the financial uncertainty regarding” with “recommends”. I'd then add “should do everything in its” following the word “government's”. I'm moving that amendment to the motion.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I'm sorry—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.

Hold on.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I'm sorry, but I would ask my colleague, Ms. Dabrusin, to repeat that, because I missed part of what she said.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I think I need to see it in writing. I couldn't follow it.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Okay, colleagues—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I do too. The way it was read out doesn't make any sense.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I'm going to suspend here so we can get a written copy out to everybody with an appropriate translation. It will probably take around 10 minutes or so.

We'll suspend.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We are back from our suspension.

Everybody should have a copy, including you, Mr. Schiefke, with the amendment that's been placed by Ms. Dabrusin.

Ms. Dabrusin, I'm going to pass the floor over to you to continue.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to be clear on how the recommendation reads and what the change is.... I'm sorry; I'm reading, as we do, to make sure that the French looks exactly like the English to me, and it does.

The original motion was:

That, given the PBO's statements in the Trans Mountain pipeline system report 2024 released on November 8, 2024, the committee expresses concern about the financial uncertainty regarding the government's ability to sell the Trans Mountain pipeline system at a price that avoids a net loss to taxpayers and asks the chairman to report back to the House as soon as possible.

The motion would read, if the amendment I propose is adopted, and I am hoping that it will be:

That, given the PBO's statements in the Trans Mountain pipeline system report 2024 released on November 8, 2024, the committee recommends the government should do everything in its ability to sell the Trans Mountain pipeline system at a price that avoids a net loss to taxpayers and asks the chairman to report back to the House as soon as possible.

Mr. Simard, the change I'm proposing is that we don't say we're concerned.

It removes the following part: “the Committee expresses concern about the financial uncertainty regarding the government's ability to sell the Transmountain Pipeline System at a price that avoids a net loss to taxpayers and asks the Chair to report back to the House as soon as possible.”

I want to replace that part with this: “the Committee recommends the government should do everything in its ability to sell the Transmountain Pipeline System at a price that avoids a net loss to taxpayers and asks the Chair to report back to the House as soon as possible.”

I think it's a little bit stronger in some ways, because it recommends something that the government do, rather than just sharing an expressed concern, and I think that is quite a bit. It also has a bit of a bolder statement. Rather than just expressing an opinion or a concern, it says what we think the government should do. To me, it strengthens the wording of the motion.

It's not in my amendment, but I will just say that it seems like a strange translation to me in the original that “président” was translated to “chairman” in the English version. Usually it would just say “chair”. I'm not going to make a huge issue of that, and I expect that won't be a big issue for members of the committee if we went back and looked at that. I know that we're not talking about that amendment, and it wasn't in the amendment I proposed. It's just unusual language that I'm not used to seeing.

Going to the main point of what I was saying, I continue to have very grave concerns, as I've expressed, about the idea that we would be sending this report back without having our full study and our full ability to put all of the witnesses' opinions and our recommendations and all of that before the House. I would say that it's kind of funny because, in some ways, this could almost have been a recommendation to our study that we could have put to the House and had the government respond to.

However, if we are going to be in a position of talking about putting something directly to the House and skipping the step of our study, it would seem to me that this is stronger wording that better expresses what I think the committee is looking at, which is that we don't want to see taxpayers have a net loss on this. These amendments would share our joint belief, but I think there would be agreement around this entire table that we don't want to see taxpayers have a net loss, so we believe that the government should do everything in its ability, when the Trans Mountain pipeline is sold, to sell at a price that avoids a net loss.

I feel that this would go further.

I'm going to restate my position. I think we'd be in a better place if we did the full study and just had this as a recommendation to the study, rather than setting it separately.

I still have grave concerns about sending just this PBO report back to the House of Commons without taking into account all of the work that we have done on this study. I think it loses a lot of its context and it loses a lot of points that could go either way in this debate. The evidence goes in many places. Different opinions have been expressed about it. It would give us a chance to actually raise all of those parts of the debate as well. Given the PBO's more limited mandate, those wouldn't be put forward if we just put forward that study.

If we were in a position where we were going to just have the report go forward, I think these amendments make a stronger statement. My recommendation would be that we try to pick up from there to go with this stronger wording.

I'm hoping the other members around the table will support this and agree that this makes the kind of positive change that at least allows us to make a statement rather than just an expression of concern or an expression of opinion. I'm hoping that I have made a convincing argument for everyone here that this new amended wording, if we're going to have to go ahead with this motion, is something worth considering.

I will put it back to you, Mr. Chair, with a note that we might want to change, as a translation issue, the word “chairman”.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.

The clerk has caught the note on that.

I'm going to go to the next speaker on our list.

Mr. Jowhari, you have the floor on the amendment.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes, it is on the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

During our recess, I had the opportunity to talk to MP Simard to try to get an understanding of how we can work together, the real reason a motion like this has been put forward, and why we are not following our standard procedure to able to get to the report. MP Simard said that he wants to be able to debate this in the House.

Well, I want to debate this in the House as well. One way we could debate this in the House would be through an opposition day motion. Unfortunately, as everyone knows, we have been stuck in a matter of privilege for the last two months. As I understand it, there's no opposition day allocation left for the Bloc. In his view, this is a way in which he would be able to get concurrence and be able to debate it in the House.

Okay, that's fair enough. Now that we understand the underlying reason MP Simard wants this, we can take steps to see how we can work together. I think what PS Dabrusin has recommended is a fine, delicate balance. I like the way she qualified by saying that we should finish the report and we should put this as a recommendation in the report, and hence the elimination of “expresses concern about the financial uncertainty regarding” and the replacement, “recommends”.

This will be a recommendation in the report. If it isn't, I'll be the one putting it in as a recommendation in the report, because that was the conclusion of everybody. I think all the members across the table have said that we don't want to show loss. We've heard from the minister that we will not lose money. We've heard from the CEO of TMX that they'll be the smart seller. We've also heard from the PBO that if you look at other elements, other benefits of it, the Government of Canada, and as such Canadians, will not lose the money. Therefore, I see this as a recommendation that we would put in the report.

Then we come to “should do everything in its” power. Again, that's something that would have gone as a recommendation in the report. When you look at the amendment, it removes “expresses concern about the financial uncertainty regarding” and replaces it with “recommends the government should do everything in its ability”. Basically, now we are taking a recommendation that will be in the report—our side is supporting that—and giving MP Simard the vehicle he was looking for to be able to run concurrence and debate it in the House. Unfortunately, in my opinion, it falls into the hands of the opposition to be able to keep this filibuster going.

I believe the amendment is one that is acceptable. It is a recommendation. It gives you the vehicle you're looking for. If we agree and we have that concurrence debate, I'll be in the House and I'll be participating in that debate.

I would strongly suggest that we support this amendment and look at it as a recommendation that we still do in the report, and that we give MP Simard the vehicle he's looking for to be able to run the debate that he wants to run in the House. I personally commit that I will participate in it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

I'm just taking a look to see whether on the amendment—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I'm ready.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Go ahead, Mr. Simard.